AAI has embarked on a new project of compiling video interviews with its distinguished alumni. Our goal is to celebrate the contributions of AAI’s diverse alumni and capture their amazing life stories so they can be preserved in our archive collection.  

This month, we would like to share interviews of two of our most distinguished alumni, Dr. Renosi Mokate and, her husband, Professor Sibusiso Vil-Nkomo.

Their exceptional careers in public service highlight the contributions AAI scholars make to their countries of origin and throughout the world.

Dr. Renosi Mokate:

Dr. Renosi Mokate is currently the Chairperson for the Government Employees Pension Fund (South Africa). She is an experienced economist and policy analyst, who specializes in development economics and finance.  She was Deputy Governor of the South African Reserve Bank, and a key member of the Monetary Policy Committee and the G20 Group of Nations Central Bank forum. Dr. Mokate left the Reserve Bank to become Executive Director of the World Bank Group (based in Washington, DC), where she represented the interests of Angola, Nigeria, and South Africa. Most recently, Dr. Mokate served as Executive Dean of the Graduate School of Business Leadership at the University of South Africa.  She serves on numerous private and public sector boards.

Prof Sibusiso Vil-Nkomo:

Professor Sibusiso Vil-Nkomo is the Chairman and Founding Member of the thinktank, Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA). He also serves as Research Professor in the Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship at the University of Pretoria. He is the former Executive Director and member of the Executive of the University of Pretoria.  He has taught and lectured at several international universities, and received awards and honors both nationally and internationally. Prof. Vil-Nkomo’s research interests include: public service, public sector economics, urban and regional economics, economics of reconciliation, the history of South Africa’s human capital investment and development and the political economy of development. He is published in academic and scientific journals in South Africa and internationally. He also serves on numerous private and public sector boards. 

They were both invited by President Mandela in the early nineties to return to South Africa to be part of the country’s democratization. They gladly obliged and left the University of Delaware to participate in the bilateral and multi – party negotiations with the African National Congress.

Dr. Mokate and Prof. Vil-Nkomo both received their undergraduate degrees from Lincoln University (Pennsylvania) and doctorate and graduate degrees from the University of Delaware.

Click here to view a selection of AAI’s alumni videos